Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis

One might expect that the divine person addressed in prayers by Indonesian Christians matches those in biblical prayers. However, this seems not always to be the case. Since referential differences in such texts are not always obvious, the aim of this paper is to define steps for identifying who exa...

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Main Authors:	André Wehrli, Norsimah Mat Awal
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit UKM 2014
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/1/3276-18878-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-7772
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-77722016-12-14T06:45:08Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/ Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis André Wehrli, Norsimah Mat Awal, One might expect that the divine person addressed in prayers by Indonesian Christians matches those in biblical prayers. However, this seems not always to be the case. Since referential differences in such texts are not always obvious, the aim of this paper is to define steps for identifying who exactly is being addressed. For that purpose, sample prayers in Indonesian are analysed. These samples consist of prayers from an Indonesian Bible translation, Christian prayers in Indonesian books, and spontaneous prayers by Indonesian Christians, which were recorded and transcribed. The following steps were defined: 1) the grammatical analysis of nouns and pronouns, 2) the listing of relevant instances of referents, 3) the assignment of these instances to certain referents and 4) the comparison of the identified referents with the context of the analysed prayers. The findings show that the person addressed in Indonesian Christian prayers cannot reliably be identified without looking at the context. As for the recorded spontaneous prayers, the socio-religious background and a close look at the actual perception of the person praying are crucial for a reliable identification of the referent. This was done by comparing the results with interview responses of these persons. By applying the four mentioned steps, different addressees can be identified in prayers. In the examples of this analysis, the most significant difference was found between the addressee of prayers in the Bible compared to the addressee in spontaneous prayers. While 9 out of 11 Christians spontaneously address Jesus in their prayers, all investigated biblical prayers do not address Jesus. The findings show that the four steps applied are beneficial to a high degree, but in some circumstances, ambiguity may remain. Penerbit UKM 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/1/3276-18878-1-PB.pdf André Wehrli, and Norsimah Mat Awal, (2014) Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 14 (3). pp. 175-189. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	One might expect that the divine person addressed in prayers by Indonesian Christians matches those in biblical prayers. However, this seems not always to be the case. Since referential differences in such texts are not always obvious, the aim of this paper is to define steps for identifying who exactly is being addressed. For that purpose, sample prayers in Indonesian are analysed. These samples consist of prayers from an Indonesian Bible translation, Christian prayers in Indonesian books, and spontaneous prayers by Indonesian Christians, which were recorded and transcribed. The following steps were defined: 1) the grammatical analysis of nouns and pronouns, 2) the listing of relevant instances of referents, 3) the assignment of these instances to certain referents and 4) the comparison of the identified referents with the context of the analysed prayers. The findings show that the person addressed in Indonesian Christian prayers cannot reliably be identified without looking at the context. As for the recorded spontaneous prayers, the socio-religious background and a close look at the actual perception of the person praying are crucial for a reliable identification of the referent. This was done by comparing the results with interview responses of these persons. By applying the four mentioned steps, different addressees can be identified in prayers. In the examples of this analysis, the most significant difference was found between the addressee of prayers in the Bible compared to the addressee in spontaneous prayers. While 9 out of 11 Christians spontaneously address Jesus in their prayers, all investigated biblical prayers do not address Jesus. The findings show that the four steps applied are beneficial to a high degree, but in some circumstances, ambiguity may remain.
format	Article
author	André Wehrli, Norsimah Mat Awal,
spellingShingle	André Wehrli, Norsimah Mat Awal, Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
author_facet	André Wehrli, Norsimah Mat Awal,
author_sort	André Wehrli,
title	Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_short	Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_full	Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_fullStr	Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_full_unstemmed	Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_sort	second person reference in indonesian christian prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
publisher	Penerbit UKM
publishDate	2014
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/1/3276-18878-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:50:35Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:50:35Z
_version_	1777406192290627584

Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis

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